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Burlington, Mass.-based Archetype Inc. announced that it has signed a letter of intent to merge with Bitstream Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. Archetype would be merged into a newly formed and wholly owned subsidiary of Bitstream. The subsidiary would continue to operate under the Archetype name. The merger is planned for the end of the first calendar quarter of 1997. However, it is subject to a number of conditions, including the execution of a definitive merger agreement and the approval of the merger by Archetype's stock holders.
"Bitstream's strengths in typographic technology and document imaging complement our strengths in document servers and composition perfectly," said Paul Trevithick, president of Archetype.
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The Fong Brothers Companies of Chelmsford, Mass., have signed an agreement in principle to acquire a majority interest in Optronics, a division of Intergraph Corp. that manufactures imaging products for graphic-arts applications.
Controlled by the Fong family of San Francisco, the Fong Brothers Companies are involved in the printing industry on an international scale. The companies include Fong Brothers Printing, Fong Brothers Graphic Systems and two joint ventures in the People's Republic of China.
The agreement calls for Fong Brothers to acquire a majority interest in Optronics and for Intergraph to retain a minority position in the new company. Another minority interest will be offered to Optronics employees. The sale is expected to be completed imminently.
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MEG and the Graphic Arts division of TEC Systems have agreed to form a new joint sales and service company, MEGTEC. The new company will bring to market a complete range of web-offset ancillary equipment, including pasters, dryers and pollution-control systems.
The agreement between MEG and TEC Systems is subject to regulatory and other approvals. TEC Systems is currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co.
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PrePress Solutions of East Hanover, N.J., has announced the latest release of its Panther RIP, which incorporates an integrated World Wide Web server, increases control over output and enhances automation controls. Also, Windows NT 4.0 will now support the Panther RIP.
The integrated Web server allows users to remotely access from their workstations RIP status information such as job names, RIP resolutions, output recorder names, and "busy" or "free" status.
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Harlequin Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., has announced that it will provide full support for the PostScript Level III features that are not already included within its ScriptWorks RIP Management System. This commitment by Harlequin to its OEMs follows Adobe Systems Inc.'s recent statement that it plans to launch PostScript Level III in 1997.
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For use with its imagesetters, Tewksbury, Mass.-based ECRM Inc. released PC RIP version 4.1 for Intel Pentium workstations operating under Windows NT 4.0. The new NT RIP is designed to enhance productivity in high-volume production environments and can be used with all ECRM standard and high-speed VR ScriptSetters and KnockOut imagesetters. It can accept networked files from application workstations that are using any combination of Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95 or Windows NT systems.
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Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Xitron Inc. announced the newest release of its Navigator RIP software, which now runs on Windows 95, NT 4.0 or 3.51. Key features are automatic trapping, CoPilot OPI with Named Pipes input plug-in, Calibration for Press Gain, TIFF/IT-P1 Input Support, and an output plug-in for the HP 75CM Color Printer.
- Under 10,000 circulation: Big Rapids (Mich.) Pioneer
- 10,001 to 20,000: Daily Times, Pekin, Ill.
- 20,001 to 50,000: Victoria (Texas) Advocate
- More than 50,000: Cedar Rapids Gazette.
- Under 10,000 circulation: The Winchester (Ky.) Sun
- 10,001 to 20,000: Troy (Ohio) Daily News
- 20,001 to 50,000: Daily Journal, Kankakee, Ill.
- More than 50,000: Chicago Tribune.
Newsbriefs
Western Litho Introduces CTP System
Western Lithotech of St. Louis has introduced a new computer-to-plate system that includes its DiamondSetter laser platesetter, DiamondPlate 88 laser plate processor and Optical Punch Bender.
DiamondSetter uses two integrated laser-imaging heads to set images onto metal plates. Independent data representing the same or different pages can be sent to the heads. The platesetter scans at a rate of 0.45-to-1.2 inches per second with a resolution of 1,016-to-1,800 dots per inch. The maximum scan width for the standard model is 13.67 inches, while the large-format model can scan up to 17.126 inches.
Following exposure, the plates are automatically transported into the DiamondPlate 88 processor, which prewashes, develops, rinses, finishes and dries up to 3-feet worth of plates per minute in one automatic process. The processor uses 6.4 gallons of developer and 1 gallon of finisher.
Next in line is the Optical Punch Bender, which provides optically-controlled plate punching and bending. It is has a punch repeatability of plus or minus 0.0005 inches.
New Facility in Gig Harbor
The Peninsula Gateway in Gig Harbor, Wash., is constructing a new 13,200-square-foot office-and-production facility. Benefits of the new facility include accommodating future growth, allowing for adequate parking and trucking, expanding opportunities for commercial work and the ability to print biweekly. Completion is expected in the summer of 1997.
The Blevins Harding Group of Boulder, Colo., was contracted to develop the design. Key issues included creating a building consistent with the town character, accommodating future change and promoting an inviting work atmosphere.
Southwest Software's Color Calibration Tool
Southwest Software of Austin, Texas, has released Color Encore for Printers, a color-calibration tool. The company says the product ensures predictable, repeatable results, so pre-press professionals can now reliably use their color printer as a proofing device.
Calibration is a two step process. Color Encore for Printers begins by linearizing the printer. Then the software automatically adds a SWOP or custom dot-gain curve to the linearization so that the printer simulates a printing press. The product comes with preconfigured calibration sets for Hewlett-Packard and Kodak large-format printers.
A color densitometer can be used to build calibration sets customized for the unique characteristics of the printer. Multiple calibration sets can be created, each for a different media type. Then as jobs are sent to the printer, Color Encore for Printers automatically selects the correct calibration set needed.
Color Encore for Printers is available for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. The suggested retail price is $695. All major desktop publishing and graphics programs are supported.
Mergers and Acquisitions
RIP Releases
Four suppliers of raster-image processor equipment and software have recently announced new releases:
GMTI Announces Advertising Link
Gannett Media Technologies International of Cincinnati is beta testing Celebro Advertising Solutions, a multimedia advertising system linking newspapers and automotive dealerships. The system automates the production of display and in-column newspaper advertisements for automotive dealers, while enabling newspapers to offer dealers Internet access, audiotext, faxback and a kiosk sales system.
Celebro is a client/server application that runs on Windows NT 4.0, while the dealers operate on Windows 95. Real-time interfaces with Adobe Pagemaker allow dealers to create customized ads or to use preformatted ad templates. The new product evolved from GMTI's Celebro Real Estate system, which is used by Realtor offices to speed the transfer of advertising data to newspapers.
Celebro Automotive is currently in beta testing at The Cincinnati Enquirer.
MEAC Introduces Compression Software
On March 4, M.E. Aslett Corp. of Edison, N.J., introduced SmartMove, a fully reversible image-compression package for the Macintosh. SmartMove is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in that compresses continuous-tone color images at ratios of up to 10 to 1.
SmartMove allows image files to be converted to alternative formats (CYMK TIFF to EPS DCS, for example) for efficient use in QuarkXpress. Each conversion is fully reversible. Compressed images may be opened in Photoshop, manipulated and exported either as a TIFF or as a SmartMove compressed image. SmartMove also supports clipping paths created in Photoshop.
Print Quality Winners
The Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette claimed the top honor for black-and-white reproduction, and the Chicago Tribune earned the top honor for color reproduction in the 1997 Inland Print Quality Competition.
Judges used original photographs as standards to assess reproduction. Criteria for judging the black-and-white entries were contrasts, highlight detail, shadow detail, smooth ink laydown, general appearance, sharpness and detail, and match to original. The criteria for judging the color entries were color match to the original, picture detail and ink laydown.
Participation this year was 266 entries, up from 171 a year ago.
Winners by circulation in the black-and-white division were:
Winners in the color division were:
MediaSphere Gets Proximity Searching
Cascade Systems Inc. of Andover, Mass., announced on Jan. 24 that it has added proximity searching to its MediaSphere archiving system. Proximity searching improves the ordering of search results by adding "clustering" to the sort criteria. Files containing matched words that are clustered together are ranked higher in the results list than those with the same matched words distributed throughout the file. This clustered sorting is in addition to the existing sort criteria, which use word frequencies and probability.
A demonstration of MediaSphere's proximity searching is available on Cascade's demo Web site (http://w3.cascadenet.com).